Evangelize - a power confrontation

Chapter 13 of the book of Acts, the last time we studied this book, we focused on the first three, four verses of chapter 13, and now I want to continue with the next eight chapters or so. The first event that meets the apostle Paul and the apostle Barnabas when they go out on their missionary journey. It says here: "Then, sent by the Holy Spirit, they descended to Sedeucia and from there they sailed to Cyprus, and when they arrived at Salamis they announced the word of God in the synagogues of the Jews. They also had John as their helper. And having traversed all the island as far as Paphos" this is one of the cities, from Cyprus, "they arrived and found a certain magician, a false prophet, a Jew, named Bar Jesus, who was with the proconsul, Sergius Paul, a prudent man. He called Barnabas and Saul wanted to hear the word of God, but Elymas resisted them." This same Bar Jesus with another name, because that is how his name is translated, Elymas, Bar Jesus, "trying to turn the proconsul away from the faith. Then Saul, who is also Paul, full of the Holy Spirit, fixing his eyes on him, said " Oh, full of all deceit and all wickedness, son of the devil, enemy of all justice, you will not cease to subvert the straight ways of the Lord." Paul became a Pentecostal there at the time, didn't he?

"Now then, behold, the hand of the Lord is against you, and you will be blind, and you will not see the sun for some time, immediately darkness and darkness fell on him, and he walked around looking for someone to lead him by the hand, then the proconsul Seeing what had happened, he marveled at the doctrine of the Lord." What a beautiful passage, right? Look, here we see something interesting, right? It is the first event recorded in the Book of Acts, from the first missionary journey of the Apostle Paul, from now until the last chapter of the Book of Acts, what we are going to see are the different episodes of the different missionary trips of the apostle Paul, from chapter 13 to 29, what we have is story after story, of the different experiences that the apostle Paul had on his travels, where the Lord sent him to preach the gospel throughout the Empire Greco-Roman. And it's interesting that on this trip, the first thing they find is two things: a great opportunity to preach the gospel, and also a great opposition against the preaching of that gospel. Notice that God leads Paul and Barnabas to meet a man who is absolutely strategic, important, in the future proclamation of the gospel, he is an official of the Roman Empire, he is a bureaucrat, an official of the Empire that controls the entire geographical world around Paul and Barnabas.

If this person converts, he could facilitate many things, wherever he has authority, this whole region of Cyprus, he is a key man who has contacts with the Roman people, and who could be very useful for the proclamation of the gospel. We have seen that God in previous chapters has taken the disciples to strategic places to preach the gospel, puts them in contact with a Roman centurion, a captain of the Roman army, Cornelius, and begins to run through the Roman army, then takes Philip , you will remember, in a passage that we also discussed, and miraculously leads him to an encounter with a eunuch who is an official of the court of Queen Candace of Ethiopia, and this man who thirsted for God receives the word, the preaching of the gospel, and he is baptized, and then he goes to his country of Ethiopia and there he preaches the gospel, in fact today as we know, in Israel, there is a whole Ethiopian community, very large, that comes, it is believed, from the preaching of this man, whom Philip evangelized, and now we see something interesting, which is that this Roman government official, Sergio Paulo, is hungry for God, he is a God-fearing man, he is a man who wants to listen, like Cornelius in the story of some how much he weeks ago, it seems that he had a healthy fear of God, who knows if he had heard from afar about this new character called Jesus, and when he learned that Paul and Barnabas had arrived on his island, he was immediately interested and invited them to have a personal audience with him to hear the word of God.

How interesting that these three characters, the Ethiopian eunuch, and this man, regardless of what is happening in the church, somehow the Holy Spirit was already working in those hearts, there was a restlessness in them, there was a desire to hear from God. , and what God did was simply unite the gospel message with hearts that were already prepared to receive God's message, and that made me think that in our neighborhoods, our neighborhoods, our cities, there are many people like Sergio Paulo, who They are eager to hear from God, they are hungry for God, but they don't know how to get in touch with the gospel.

Let me tell you, nowadays, with so many means of communication, there is the internet, there is television, there are magazines and newspapers, one would think that there is no reason for people not to listen to the gospel, I don't know if they can upload a the microphone a little bit, can all of you hear me back there? The world listens to the gospel, everyone has an opportunity, let me tell you that in our cities, right now in this city of Boston, we have the Latino community, for example, there are many people who do not have contact with a Christian, do not have contact with a church They have a desire to receive the word of God, they are having marital problems, problems with their children, and they do not know how to contact a Christian. That would seem impossible to believe but it is true, many people, for example, feel intimidated by the idea of entering an evangelical church. Put yourself in the shoes of a person who has never had the chance to go to an evangelical church. You know how threatening it is to contemplate the idea of going through the doors and entering a place that nobody knows you, that you don't know what they are going to tell you, that they have said that Christians are crazy, that they will to pick up, and right away they're going to ask you for money, they're not going to leave you alone for the rest of your life, they're going to be calling you, bothering you, they don't take your word, they're worried like Sergio Pablo, but there's no way to get in touch with the word.

Where is their hope, men and women like you and me, that we can take the word to their neighborhood, we can speak to those people, in our work there are people who have a healthy concern for God, and you know what will happen with that people, who having spiritual concerns if they do not receive the true gospel, the devil will send people like Bar Jesus to confuse them and give them a false gospel. One wonders what Bar Jesus, this false prophet, was doing next to a serious and spiritual man like Sergio Paulo. I believe that precisely because of that spiritual restlessness that he has in a pagan world, he has been offering him magic, offering him false religion, offering him false contact with God, manipulating him as false prophets do, about the word of God, etc.

This man in his ignorance went after the first thing he found, and took this Bar Jesus as a spiritual advisor. And what this man did was give him false food to quench his thirst for God's truth, and that's what happens with so many people in this culture, they are hungry for God, they don't want to come to an evangelical church or they don't know, the devil He has filled you with lies about what evangelicals are, I assure you brothers that he has a healthy desire to know God out there, but either because of the bad preaching of the gospel, or the bad examples that we Christians have given, from so many ways, because of the false Christianity that is preached many times, prosperity, manipulation, the financial corruption that there is today from so much preaching of the gospel, false, they do not want it because they think that this is the gospel, and the devil provides them with a false religion through Buddhism, Hinduism, through the New Age, through false spiritualities that fill their cultural sense and their reasoning, and then they find themselves like Sergio Paulo, who want God, but this serpent is there whispering to them

Interestingly, Pablo and Barnabé brought the Holy Spirit before this man, when they begin to preach to him because he himself has requested this interview, what does Bar Jesús do, he immediately begins to whisper to Sergio Pablo, don't believe them, that's a lie, that's a hoax that this man rose from the dead, and it is the only truth, that is a lie, there are many gods, and I imagine that while Pablo and Barnabas preached to Sergio Paulo, this man was there contradicting them, hindering them, preventing them from preaching the gospel fluently, in a clear way, and trying to confuse this man who had a healthy fear of God. I believe, brothers, that if one had been able to look behind the spiritual world, he would have seen demons that had control of Bar Jesus, whispering to Bar Jesus and using this demon-possessed man to prevent Sergio Paulo from hearing the gospel and converting.

That is why, brothers, we need the power of the Holy Spirit in our lives. Paul says in the Bible that he was filled at that moment, he was able to discern what was happening, and filled with the Holy Spirit, he rebuked that evil spirit that animated Bar Jesus, and essentially declared a word of curse and judgment, on this man and prevented him from get away with it. Brothers, one of the things that I thought at this time is that the same thing happens with the Church of Jesus Christ, there are many people in the world today who have a desire, I think of the Latino community, the Afro-American community, our people has a healthy fear of God, comes from either a Catholic or evangelical background, but they have Jesus, they respect Christianity, they respect the church, but there are a number of cultural influences that are trying to intimidate, confuse, prevent the gospel from being preached, and we have to be aware of that, there will be opposition to the church of Jesus Christ when it wants to preach the gospel.

God has purposes for our congregation, and I want to tell you brothers that as we try to do God's work, let's not be surprised that the devil is also trying to create tares, trying to do harm, trying to prevent the word of God advance and put obstacles to the preaching of the gospel, and that is why we have to fill ourselves with the conviction and power of God because God wants to use us, he wants to use you so that every day you can take the gospel to people like Sergio Paulo who need to listen the word of the Lord. And we cannot allow ourselves to be intimidated, we cannot allow ourselves to be gagged and silenced by an enemy who wants to make us lose the bosom of the Lord. We have a clear message, we have the answer to the needs of our community, and we have to fill ourselves with courage, because many people will want to prevent you and I from proclaiming the truth as happened with this man. The only thing we have to be clear about is this, there are many people who have false religions of God, but we cannot blame them, many times the Christian churches adopt this position that people are difficult, that they do not want to receive the gospel, brother, I have found that when we preach the gospel to people in a healthy, simple, understandable way, people react positively, people have a desire for God, and sometimes we evangelicals put so many obstacles to preaching, and we make it difficult for non-believers to come to the ways of the Lord.

We have to adopt a positive mentality towards non-believers, we have to believe that they are going to come to the gospel, we have to believe that we have a nice, winning message, a message that can reach their hearts, we have to stop fearing tell unbelievers about the Lord Jesus Christ. Sometimes we get the great surprise that when we preach to someone, when we invite him to church, expecting a refusal, he tells us oh yes, I want to go, this week a brother, he worked delivering packages for UPS, he went to a house American to deliver a package, he knocked on the door, a lady who looked depressed, emaciated opened it, he says that at the end of the room there was another man, an older man, sitting on a sofa with an equally depressed face, and he greeted to the lady, and I don't know how exactly but a conversation started and she told her that she was sick, she was depressed, she felt sad, and my husband is also here, they have diagnosed him with an incurable cancer, and they have only given him a few how many months to live

This brother, who is a man full of God and the Spirit, told her, ma'am, you want me to pray for you, and that I pray for your husband, and he said to the Lord, look, I cannot guarantee that you will be healed if I I pray for you, but if you receive Christ as your Lord and Savior, whether you live or die, you are going to be with the Lord, may I pray for you and your wife? And he says that the man with tears that began to come out told him yes, pray for us. This brother from the church prayed for this couple, prayed for healing, and asked them if they both wanted to receive Christ, and they both said yes, we want to receive Jesus, and I believe that like Philip, our brother left there and went to their next meeting, blessed by that experience, the last thing this man said to our brother, was "if I die, and I go to heaven, for all eternity I will be giving thanks to God for you, I will remember you in heaven". How nice.

So despite the devil, who wants to intimidate us and wants to find conviction, we have a unique message, we have to ask the Lord to give us courage, strength, to preach the gospel in season and out of season, because there will be opposition . I will end with this example from my own life that I lived in this church, I am going to ask the musicians to stop by for a moment, I want to leave you this illustration, this week in Boston there was a crime, and it was related to families that attend our church. A young woman from the Dominican community was murdered by her boyfriend, I don't know if you had a chance to see it on the news and in the newspapers, I met this young woman when she was a little girl, the gospel was preached to her, she persisted on a path of drugs and promiscuity and bad company, and despite the fact that various churches made an effort to promote her salvation, she said no, that she was already given over to this, and that she knew that one day she was going to die violently. Look, what a confession.

She resisted the gospel, and her boyfriend, I understand, because of a matter of jealousy, shot her five times. A few days ago, and this girl passed away, the funeral home said no, this girl was a leader, the devil precisely tries to catch talented people and immediately tries to prevent them from reaching the gospel, like Sergio Paulo, he knew a lot of people, he was so many people who wanted to come to his funeral that they could not have the funeral there at the funeral home, I found out about the wake, part of this church, I called them, I offered them our facilities here in León de Judá, very gratefully they they accepted, when I arrived on Wednesday night, for the main service, his body was here, I found that the street outside was full of people who wanted to enter and the church was already full, there were policemen outside, there were a gang of motorcyclists who wanted to enter the church also leaving all their motorbikes outside, the place was crowded with unconverted people, I saw young people involved in drugs, alcoholism, all kinds of bad life, God had brought them captives here to the church.

I was not the pastor who was officiating because a good part of her family attends another church, but they had told me that they wanted me to share a few words, you know that a few words is dangerous for me, right? So when I I came here for the service and seeing all this sea of unconverted people, and young people who, I think have probably never entered a church, and I believe they will never enter again, I struggled a lot inside, and that's why I talk to you about the opposition that exists in our culture to overshadow the word of the Father, because there are voices today, for example with our youth, our youth are captives of the devil, of drugs, promiscuity, crime, violence, our youth are they are killing each other, this very week three or four more young people died, here in the city of Boston, violence is a terrible thing, our youth is lost, our community, which I say is a community that has a healthy fear of di You are not receiving the gospel, now you know the voices that do reach those people, the voices of Bar Jesus, look, the city of Boston health department, does not want evangelicals to preach about sexual abstinence, what they want is for us to preach about condoms, and responsible sex as they call it.

Look, preach to a seventeen-year-old who has hormones pouring out of his ears about responsible sex. They don't understand that, what they want is for us to talk about birth control, that's all. They don't want to give money to teach young people to restrain their sexual appetites because they say that's impossible. That's what the Massachusetts Department of Health does. Electronic pages that tell young people that homosexuality and lesbianism are okay, that is one more option, among many different options that they have, our children are taught from a very young age about homosexuality and supposedly responsible sex, lesbianism What they are, the health department, the United States government itself, is preaching this evil gospel that keeps our young people in chains to the devil. They prevent the church from preaching to these young people. When we say that homosexuality is wrong, that lesbianism is wrong, that promiscuity should not be practiced, they tell us that we have a closed mind. That we have to allow that to be preached in our schools. And that is what is taking our young people. The department of mental health, of physical health, is full, flooded with families that the devil is eating them alive, and they try to gag the church so that it does not preach the only hope that is Christ Jesus.

And then when we try to preach, as I say, they try to gag, like Paul and Barnabas, they try to fill us with fear, when these young people were here, I stood here in front, and I saw what was happening, that it was an opportunity The only one to preach the gospel, you know my struggle, because sometimes we pastors preach and people don't know what is happening inside us, I wondered Lord, first, I knew that there were officials from here in the city who had come because It was a notorious case, and I knew that I was not the main pastor, although I was the host because it was our church, but I did not want to take control of the meeting either, I was afraid that people would think that I was abusing these people who were fragile, here today, who feels fragile because of death and that I was taking advantage of it to manipulate them, my mind is very open to the pressures of this culture, and one struggles, the more one is involved with the world out there, the more one he Fight with these voices that are out there, I think we have to get involved.

There are many people who say you are fanatics, God is a God in many different ways, and you have a closed mind, you accuse us of being fanatics, but you know while I was fighting and I saw these young people tied to the devil, and I said how I can not announce Christ in a situation like this, and God gave me the power and strength to preach to them about God who says I am the door, and whoever enters through me will be saved, I spoke to them about what Christ says, the thief only comes to steal, kill and destroy, but I have come so that they may have life, and so that they may have it in abundance, and I said to these young people, the devil wants you to end up as Alessa ended, or for you to pass all their lives around the same thing, and that in the end in their old age they end up drugged, alcoholics, begging for pesetas in the streets, a human wreck, and Christ says nevertheless I have come so that they may have life, and I challenged them I told them look Christ is the only hope that you You have to get rid of drugs, alcohol, criminality, promiscuity, receive Jesus, I told you, look, this is perhaps the only opportunity I have to speak to you, and I don't want to waste it, I forgot that there were Hispanics here and I spoke to them in English because I wanted to address them specifically, I wanted them to hear the clear preaching of the gospel.

I know that some people got upset, but brothers we cannot stop preaching the gospel, woe to us says the word if we stop preaching the only hope that youth has, the voices of Elymas are going to be trying to gag us, the thing it will get worse every day, more and more people will turn against the gospel, and we will have to gather our courage, and say we will come to preach the truth of the gospel, no matter who says what they say, that's why we have to fill ourselves with the power of God, we have to be a Pentecostal people, that is why we have to eat red meat spiritually to be filled with the strength of God, the devil wants to weaken the people of God, fill us with doubt, fill us with fear, intimidate us, water down the gospel, So that we do not clearly preach Christ who is the source of life and salvation for the community, our community out there needs a church, it needs passionate men and women, convinced of the e gospel that we have received. That the devil wags his tail, it doesn't matter to us, that they call us fanatics, it doesn't matter, we have to preach the word of God in a clear, undiluted, unadulterated way, the clear word that we have received from God .

We have to proclaim that word, you have to arm yourself with courage, in the name of the Lord ask God to give you courage to speak to your colleagues at work, in your neighborhood, your family, your boss, of course you can do it with wisdom, there is We also have to be wise, but we also have to be daring in the name of the Lord, and when the devil wants to fill you with fear as Paul said, may the Lord rebuke you, we have to pray for our community so that the devil withdraws, because Satan is fighting for souls, the bible says that before looting the house of a strong man, you have to tie him up first, and the church of Christ has to intercede, you have to pray, we have to do spiritual warfare, with one hand we tie the devil with our prayers, with another hand we preach the gospel, and we order Satan to release the souls, we have to order the devil to release the souls of this community, because God brings a harvest, but first we have to bind the strong man, and we have to We have to do spiritual warfare, we have to be men and women warriors, brother and sister we have to stop playing games now, things are getting tough, but God wants to give us a great harvest.

When I preached the gospel to these young people, perhaps some of you were here, I made a call in the name of the Lord, God wants to deliver you, God wants you to start something by faith and affiliate yourself with the power of Christ, the the blood of Jesus, which is the only thing that can protect their heads and is the only thing that can protect them from the devil, and I dared and told them, raise your hands if you want to receive Jesus this afternoon, brothers, dozens of young people and adults raised their hands that afternoon and received Jesus.

I know that through this process God will lead them, because many times a confrontation of power is needed, Christ says that when we open the door He enters, I know that many young people, there a spiritual confrontation took place, and God It is going to take them now to where it has to take them, but something broke, and that is what we have to do, give people a clear choice, look, choose between the power of darkness that wants to destroy you, and the power of gospel that wants to redeem you, so you have to preach to the people, because that's the way it is, it's a power struggle between the devil who wants to keep souls tied up so that God doesn't use them, so that God doesn't use their talents like the from Sergio Pablo to let the gospel run, between that demonic power and the power of Jesus, who wants to give life to our community, you have the answer like Paul and Barnabas, become an evangelist.

We are going to stand up, I am going to ask the Lord to fill us with courage to proclaim the gospel, I want to declare a fresh anointing on you to be an evangelist, a proclaimer of the word, identify three, four, five people in your family, in your neighborhood, when you get home write them on a piece of paper to pray for them. Start praying for those lives, bind the devil in those lives. How many people do you know who do not have the Lord, make a list of people, and start praying for God to open doors, for God to open their hearts, and start sharing the gospel with them, and that they give you the opportunity to invite them to the church, and tell them, look, I'm going to take you to my church so that you can listen to the word of God. We have to make it clear to the people at this time that what they are doing is not only coming to church to play and listen to the gospel, what they are doing is choosing between life and death, choosing between darkness and light, choosing between slavery and freedom, choosing between the devil who wants to steal, kill and destroy their souls, and the benevolent dominion of Jesus, who has come so that we may have life, and life in abundance.

Raise your hand and receive a fresh anointing from the Lord right now. Father I declare my church, an evangelistic church, a church passionate about the gospel, a church that does not back down, a church eminently aware of its call to be proclaimers of the gospel, Father I proclaim an evangelistic anointing upon them, we declare a harvest of souls Lord , we declare that many of the lives that were preached this week, many of them will come to a full knowledge of Jesus, and from now on we claim their lives for the gospel, we open the doors of this church for multitudes to enter to receive the gospel, and we ask Lord that You fill our hearts with courage and a sense of urgency to proclaim Jesus as Lord and Savior of humanity. Pour out your gifts, do wonders Lord, give us authority to unleash the move of the Holy Spirit, so that as with Paul and Barnabas people see a preached gospel, also bathed with the power of the presence of God, thank you Lord, we receive new anointing to evangelize the souls of this community, and we thank you for those who are to come to the gospel, thank you, in the name of Jesus, amen.